The Białowieża forest is home to the world's largest population of the vulnerable European bison

Herr stahlhoefer / Wikimedia Commons

Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, Uber and Yandex are merging their Russian businesses to form a new ride-hailing firm, the EU is seeking a ban on devastating logging in Poland’s ancient Białowieża forest, Google has revealed its new London cloud computing datacentre and more.

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Uber has merged its Russian business division with Yandex, which has its own sizeable ride-hailing business in the region (Ars Technica). The companies will merge their Russian assets into an as-yet-unnamed new firm, of which Yandex will own 59.3 per cent and Uber 36.6 per cent, with staff members getting a total 4.1 per cent stake. The new company will operate in 127 cities across Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia.

The European Union has asked the European Court to ban logging in Poland’s half of the Białowieża Forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that has seen a vast increase in deforestation spurred on by the Polish government (The Guardian). Karmenu Vella, the EU's environment commissioner, said: "We have asked that Polish authorities cease and desist operations immediately. These actions are clear, practical steps that the European Commission has taken to protect one of the last remaining primaeval forests in Europe". The forest is home to some of Europe's rarest wildlife and represents a unique ecosystem. Poland, which maintains that tree felling is needed to control a bark beetle outbreak – a claim questioned by environmental experts – has reportedly logged 30,000 cubic metres of woodland since the beginning of 2017.

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Google has revealed a massive cloud computing datacentre in London – its second in Europe (BBC News). Google product manager Dave Stiver said: "GCP (Google Cloud Platform) customers throughout the British Isles and Western Europe will see significant reductions in latency when they run their workloads in the London region. In cities like London, Dublin, Edinburgh and Amsterdam, our performance testing shows 40% to 82% reductions in round-trip latency when serving customers from London compared with the Belgium region." Google is currently the world's third most popular cloud computing provider, behind Amazon and Microsoft.

Samsung has revealed that there is nothing of Viv, the innovative AI assistant it bought outright last year which writes its own programs to answer queries, in its own new AI assistant, Bixby (WIRED). In an exclusive interview with WIRED, Injong Rhee, Samsung Mobile's chief technology officer, said: "The current version of Bixby is based on Samsung’s own technology, which was in development for several years. Our proprietary software provides the foundation for Bixby. Viv Labs’ technology will be used for the growth of the ecosystem". This statement contradicts what Samsung told WIRED back in April at the launch of the Galaxy S8, where a spokesperson said: "We've utilised some of Viv for building Bixby", although they were unable to confirm to what extent the technology was used.

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A new study has revealed that, like humans and great apes, ravens can plan and prepare for future events (Science). The birds were taught to use a stone tool to open a box containing food. They learned to pick up and use the correct tool when the box was there, but also selected and hung on to the tool when the box was missing, showing that they anticipated its return. They also learned to trade the tool for a token that would get them a better reward. One bird even had to be removed from the experiment because it hacked the test by devising a non-standard method of extracting food from the box, study co-author Can Kabadayi told Motherboard.

From DDoS attacks to data manipulation, new cybersecurity regulations to organised fraud, businesses and consumers alike are faced with ever greater levels of security threats. Get inside knowledge on the developing threat landscape at WIRED Security 2017, returning to London on September 28.

Bloomberg reports that Oculus is working on a new stand-alone VR headset that it intends to reveal at its Connect conference in October (Ars Technica). The new headset will reportedly be priced at $200 (£155), have a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and be "more powerful" than the smartphone-dependent Samsung Gear VR. An Oculus representative told Ars Technica that "we don't have a product to unveil at this time; however, we can confirm that we're making several significant technology investments in the standalone VR category. This is in addition to our commitment to high-end VR products like Oculus Rift and mobile phone products like Gear VR".

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Nintendo has ceased production of its standard sized New 3DS handheld in Japan, although the 2DS and 3DS XL versions remain on the market (Polygon). A message on Nintendo's website confirms that the console, which superseded the original 3DS in 2014 and has a more powerful processor, is no longer being made for the Japanese market. However, the New 3DS will remain on sale in the USA, where a representative of Nintendo of America told Polygon: "This announcement does not affect Nintendo of America territories, as the model in question was only sold in limited quantities as special offerings. There are no changes to the sales status of New Nintendo 3DS XL, Nintendo 2DS or the upcoming New Nintendo 2DS XL, which launches on July 28". It's not immediately clear what the company's plans for Europe are.

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Netflix's animated Castlevania series tells a tale of vengeance in the Romanian region of Wallachia as Dracula seeks retribution for the murder of his human wife (WIRED). Like the Konami games it's based on, the real stars of the show are the Belmont clan, an ancient family of monster hunters locked in a blood-feud with Dracula and his supernatural ilk – a feud that has seen them excommunicated and shunned even as they've saved Wallachia countless times. Set in 1476, the series finds Trevor Belmont, the clan's last surviving son, drunk and despondent as Dracula's hordes bear down on the countryside. What follows in this first season's brief four episodes is stylish and stupid. That's not an insult – the show embraces the pulpiness of the game series' visuals, alongside some of the basic mechanical ideas that pull those games together: exploring of arcane spaces; challenging combat; a thin veneer of medieval aesthetic fascination. In doing so, showrunner Adi Shankar, writer Warren Ellis, and their collaborators have created something that is both entirely unlike a Castlevania game and completely true to the spirit of one. And it does so with the glee of smart people creating what might otherwise be thought of as lowbrow culture – simply because it's a blast to do so. It wouldn't be hyperbole to say that this is one of the best videogame adaptations of all time. That's because it's a very, very, very low bar. But Castlevania is in the process of raising it.

Bethesda has released a new trailer for forthcoming FPS Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus that provides a glimpse into the world of its alternative timeline, which saw the Nazis conquer America in the Second World War (VG24/7). Titled German or Else, the trailer reveals a gameshow that shows the Nazi regime "imposing their will on pop culture, taking what would have been iconic American TV shows". Wolfenstein II is out on October 27 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

The newly-released video for Nine Inch Nails' Less Than centres around a customised build of Llamasoft's latest trance-fuelled action-arcade game Polybius (Ars Technica). Llamasoft's Jeff Minter told Ars Technica that NIN's Trent Reznor messaged him out of the blue on Twitter: "(Trent) mentioned that he'd enjoyed Llamasoft's stuff and he had an idea to discuss," Minter says. "Of course I was super chuffed to hear he'd liked our work, as I've enjoyed his a lot over the years too!" The video shows the hypnotic effect of the game and music on a player, which ties in neatly to the urban legend of a cursed arcade machine that inspired Polybius.

Microsoft has upped its artificial intelligence game by announcing the formation of a specialist unit that will put its AI to work on projects in healthcare, environment and education. The first such initiative, AI for Earth, will offer tools and services to non-governmental organisations that are tackling issues related to water, agriculture, climate change and biodiversity.

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With five Olympic medals, Ben Ainslie is one of the world's most successful sailors. His next challenge? To win the America's Cup. In this double issue, WIRED joins him and the Land Rover BAR team in Bermuda as he prepares for the race. Plus, we go inside the UK's new unicorn Improbable, and behind the lines at Elon Musk's distribution factory. Subscribe and save now. Out in print and digital. Subscribe now and save.